|
Lifestyle Counseling Dramatically Cuts Diabetes Risk
|
|
|
By Kalia Doner
|
Diabetes Focus First Quarter 2007
|
 |
Repeat one more time: “Preventing diabetes is a team effort!” Here’s who can lend a hand—and proof that lifestyle changes work.
Changing the habits of a lifetime is difficult; for people with prediabetes, glucose intolerance or metabolic syndrome who are told to make radical adjustments in their diet and level of physical activity, it can seem almost impossible. Well, it’s time to ask for help. That help might come from a doctor, diabetes educator, nutritionist and/or diabetes nurse practitioner.
The Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study let researchers in Finland look at the health of participants over many years. They found that when people had ongoing counseling about how to eat right, exercise and make other lifestyle changes, the frequency at which they went from glucose intolerance to diabetes was cut by an amazing 43 percent. Reporting their results in The Lancet, the researchers noted that once counseling stopped, the group that had received the support kept a 36 percent reduction in their risk of developing diabetes.
Complementing these findings, an article in Diabetes Care looked at results from the Diabetes Prevention Program and singled out weight loss as the lifestyle change most effective in preventing diabetes. For every kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of weight that a study participant lost, his or her chance of developing diabetes was cut by 16 percent. Even among those who didn’t reach their weight-loss goals, cranking up their level of physical activity to meet the program’s standards cut the risk for diabetes by as much as 44 percent.
|
|
|
|
|
|